Frostbite Symptoms
by caramelcat
Summary: Anna was eleven when the darling princess of Arendelle celebrated the turn of her fourteenth year. Elsa/Anna AU. Rated M for future chapters. Villager!Anna, Royal!Elsa.
1. Meeting

**A/N: **So I was given a prompt to write a multi-chapter fic that entails the adventures of villager Anna crushing hard on royal Elsa and I present to you the relatively short introduction chapter to such a fic. Much angst is to follow, so I'm just going to apologize right now. I hope you enjoy the ride!

_Frostbite Symptoms_

_Chapter One;_

_Meeting_

Anna was eleven when the darling princess of Arendelle celebrated the turn of her fourteenth year.

A celebration was to be held throughout the entire kingdom, the center of the party bustling on the castle grounds. Princess Elsa's birthday was an occasion all of Arendelle cherished - the heir of their beloved King and Queen was most popular among the citizens. With her bright, innocent eyes and platinum hair accompanied by her impeccable manners and kindness, she won the love of her kingdom on the day of her birth and continued to warrant it as she aged.

Little Anna favored her quite strongly in particular. And today was one she earnestly looked forward to more and more with each passing year.

"C'mon, Kristoff!" Anna hopped on one leg out of the front door of her cottage, tugging on her boot as she went. "We'll be late for the opening ceremony!" she called in her teakettle voice, words whistling out of her mouth. "I wonder what the princess will wear this year," she clasped her tiny, mitten muffled hands together and her gaze went glossy. "She's so _beautiful_."

Suddenly a rough shove had her dining on a mouthful of snow. A laugh punctuated the assault and Anna reared her head, glaring at the young boy smiling at her from the doorway.

"Maybe Princess Elsa will notice you this year if you're covered in snow, since she loves it so much."

Anna dusted the snow from her clothes as she stood, then pointedly punched her companion in the shoulder.

"Jerk," she adjusted her knitted winter cap. "And I don't need to be covered in snow for her to notice me."

"You're right, it's pretty hard not to notice the lovesick puppy eyes you make at her. I bet she notices you from a million miles away."

Anna's cheeks burned at that and she fruitlessly kicked snow toward Kristoff.

"I don't do that!" she cried in denial, crossing her arms. "She's just super pretty, and talented, and nice, and she's a _princess, _and she's a really _smart _princess -"

"Lovesick puppy eyes," Kristoff sang, as if Anna had proved his point, dodging the snowball Anna hurled at him as he continued to taunt her by repeating the phrase. It arced through the open door and knocked a lit candle from one of the carved wooden tables that sat in the main sitting room. Anna's eyes doubled in size as she scrambled back into her home, stamping out the tiny flame and destroying the candle beneath her boot clad feet.

At the sound of all the commotion, her father posed a question in the form of Anna's name, his voice calling from his room. A large man by the name of Hardegin with ginger scruff and a weathered yet kind smile, Anna's father was the blacksmith of Arendelle and the bulges of muscle in his arms and broadness of his chest proved it. His voice was deep, low, and powerful, although Anna knew he was a teddy bear of a man.

Anna, not desiring to delay herself any further, quickly stuffed the ruined candle into her coat and bolted from the house, pulling the front door shut as she went and effectively ignored her father.

"Thanks a lot, dummy!" she hissed as she ran by Kristoff, her rapid footfalls carrying her toward the castle.

Kristoff laughed, hands tucked behind his head as he leisurely followed behind her.

"Not my fault you threw a snowball at me and your family lights candles in the middle of the day!"

This time the snowball she threw landed on its mark, and Kristoff's smile melted with the snow as he wiped it from his face.

- - x - -

"I can't see her!"

Anna bobbed through the sea of villagers present for Princess Elsa's celebration, straining on the tips of her toes to catch a glimpse of her entrance. Gradients of winter colors dressed the courtyard in ribbons and the excited chatter of townspeople accented the cold, but sun-kissed day.

Kristoff, while only a year and a half older than Anna, could see well enough over the heads of the crowd to know the gates had yet to even be opened for the dramatic introduction of his kingdom's princess. He hung at the back of the assembly while Anna flitted here and there - he was not lost on the fact that while Arendelle was a lovely kingdom, there was a totem pole of wealth and nobility that he and Anna resided at the bottom of. Anna's father, however, was an important asset as he provided weaponry for those of the royal guard, so he supposed Anna may have ranked higher than himself. Regardless, the nobles populated the front of the crowd and the social ranks beneath them followed suit, the villagers and peasants residing at the back end.

"The gates are still closed," he said, his hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers as he casually rocked back and forth on his heels. Surveying the expressions of excitement and awe among the citizens of Arendelle, he saw Anna reflected in each one of their faces. Even if he didn't express it as freely or desperately as his best friend (or his fellow villagers, apparently), he thought highly of the princess as well. Though he did harbor the opinion that all of the fuss over her could be overwhelming and unnecessary at times.

"Lemme climb on your back," suddenly Anna's voice was directly behind him and she was already attempting – rather poorly – to hoist herself onto his shoulders.

"Whoa!" Kristoff whirled and took a step back, throwing Anna off balance but catching her before she took another nosedive into the snow. "I'm not holding you up, you're too heavy."

Anna groaned.

"Come on, you're taller than me. And I'm small."

Kristoff scoffed, "It's not like you've never seen her before -" he bit off the end of his sentence as the mouth of the castle gates opened with a deep yawn and Anna positively _squealed _beside him. Before he could blink, she was ducking beneath arms and weaving around members of the crowd in the direction of the imposing castle doors.

Flanked by the king and queen, the heir of Arendelle entered the courtyard with a soft, trained smile. Her ethereal hair was woven into a French braid that drew a halo around her head and tied into a bun at the nape of her neck. A cobalt blue dress with black, velvet sleeves adorned her small frame and a glimmering diamond pulsed at the heart of the dress. A small, though detailed crystalline crown was tucked into her hair atop her head and deep blue gloves clothed her hands.

Kristoff could practically hear Anna screaming from the head of the crowd as he imagined her reaction to how well decorated the princess was for her birthday.

"The King and Queen of Arendelle," a member of the royal staff, a pear-shaped man with a bellowing voice, announced as he swept his arm in the direction of the royal trio. They bowed and curtsied accordingly, their smiles warm. The Queen's arms were tucked around one of the King's as they watched their daughter. "And I present to you, Princess Elsa!" He emphasized his introduction with a bow and the princess smiled gracefully as her eyes crinkled at the corners, though humbly looked as though she thought the formality and attention was unnecessary. She curtsied politely.

"Thank you," she said, the pair of words delivered quietly and almost bashful. She then turned and curtsied to her kingdom, receiving a storm of claps that pelted the surrounding area like rainfall and a tidal wave of cheers rolled over her.

Kristoff, despite himself, joined in and clapped rather enthusiastically as Elsa disappeared from his sight and approached those at the head of the crowd, initially mingling with the noble families as she was meant to. The king and queen, still standing at the doorway, were approached by a man that appeared to be a member of a distant royal family, who congratulated them on the continued success of their daughter. Kristoff watched the interactions occur in a strange sort of muted fascination, all coherent words silenced by the static cheering.

And then the wave of claps and cheers transformed into a rush of gasps as silence swept through the courtyard. It seemed everyone's attention was being directed at the border of the crowd where Kristoff had lost sight of the princess and he craned his neck to try and see.

A blur of red hair was enough for his jaw to hang loosely from its hinges.

In her haste and excitement, Anna seemed to have popped out of the crowd unannounced and caught her foot on a rather large man's boot - a _noble _man's boot- and promptly knocked the princess to the powdered ground. Her body was accessorized by none other than Anna herself, sprawled on top of her. The king's attention snapped to his daughter and he moved to approach her while a servant rushed to Elsa's side and the young princess held out her hand in response, a silent demand to halt.

Anna's cheeks caught fire despite the cold and her stomach slowly drew itself into a tight knot as she came to fully comprehend what she had done. Fear gripped her in an unforgiving vice and shame burned across her skin when a man in the crowd hollered for someone to pull the peasant from the princess. Anna didn't witness it, of course, but Kristoff's eyes hunted for the man who possessed that voice, his knuckles braced.

Elsa's calm voice snagged her attention.

"Are you alright?"

Anna's eyes bugged in her head and she scrambled to her feet, offering Elsa the crown that had tipped off of her head in the fall.

"I – I am _so sorry, _forgive me Your Highness, it was an accident, suddenly I was just falling and – and then you were just _there _and then there I am in the same place you are – "

Elsa had taken the crown and adjusted it back on her head and Anna dropped into a bow in response, knees buried in the snow. The princess brushed the light dusting of snow from the front of her dress before touching a hand to Anna's shoulder, effectively silencing her. Anna gazed up at her in fear and apology.

Elsa slipped her hand from Anna's shoulder to her wrist, pulling her up to stand.

"You're alright, then?"

Anna's eyes couldn't grow any larger.

"Me? I'm _fine_, I'm completely – are _you _alright? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to – _wow_, I'm so stupid –"

Elsa laughed and Anna saw it in her eyes before she saw the smile on her lips. A match swept against her cheeks, skin catching fire once again. An innocent child's crush. She struggled between running away (preferably to an entirely different country at this point), staring, and fainting.

"I'm fine, thank you," her gaze disconnected from Anna's and glided across the courtyard's audience. She seemed to communicate to the anxious faces before her that all was well, and her father's white gloved hands touched to Elsa's shoulder, then Anna's as he called from behind them.

"Let the celebration begin!"


	2. The Blacksmith's Daughter

_Frostbite Symptoms_

_Chapter Two;_

_The Blacksmith's Daughter_

The air was sodden with heat.

Kristoff lay against the trunk of a towering oak tree in hopes of diverting the sun's attention and its sluggish heat, a sliver of straw bobbing from his mouth. His hands cushioned his head and he reveled in the quiet shade. While he was not exactly cool, the branches filtered enough sunlight to provide a decent amount of relief from the heat of the sun's angry and expansive stare. Puberty had begun to chisel the roundness from his cheeks and jaw, and a twiggy meadow of scruff had sprouted on his chin. His voice cracked when flustered, though it had mostly taken on a smooth and deep mahogany sort of sound. The muscles of his biceps protruded in a way they hadn't before and he was growing into a broad young man from the lanky boy he had been. Nearly seventeen, he had begun to develop handsomely.

Anna, now fifteen, balanced on a lumpy log that bridged two sides of a freshwater stream. Her hair, while still fiery, had calmed to a light auburn, though her freckles had only multiplied throughout summer like daisies popping from the soil at the slightest hint of sunlight. A splash of them peppered her nose and cheeks, as well as her collar and shoulders. She detested them and longed for smooth, ivory skin that went uninterrupted by such bothersome blemishes. To help ward some of the heat, her hair was pulled away from her face and wrapped in a loose bun that had originally been tied higher, but drooped at the nape of her neck now. She wore a crisp, collared dress that composed of a short-sleeved, mint green blouse and a forest green bodice, the string woven at her chest a wooden color. A pair of worn, flat pumps encased her slight feet. Between the heat and the tight pull of her corset, she fell under frequent dizzy spells in the humid afternoon.

Kristoff wore a simple white tunic and a pair of black trousers that he had severed at the knee and made into shorts. Anna was jealous, even if she'd chosen her clothing poorly on her own.

"You'd better not fall or you're going to ruin your fancy dress," Kristoff murmured around the straw wedged between his teeth.

"I'm not going to fall," Anna said defensively, clenching her jaw in a grimace as her arms reeled in a series of circles until she fully regained her balance.

"'Kay," he answered disinterestedly, eyes closed. "Where'd you get that dress, anyway?"

Anna hopped down from the log, averting her blue eyes even though Kristoff's were closed.

"It was a gift."

One of Kristoff's eyes cracked open in response to the cryptic reply and he saw Anna was turned away from him. She'd been acting aloof all afternoon. Closing his eyes once more, he settled more comfortably against the oak tree.

"A gift from who?"

He heard her spout a quick, mumbled reply.

"Who?" he repeated.

"_Itwasagiftfromtheroyalfamily_," the words squeezed out of the corner of her mouth in a rapid string of syllables, but he heard enough to understand. He sat up, both eyes open and alert.

"Wait a minute, did Princess _Elsa _give you that dress?"

Anna's silence and sudden interest in the cloudless sky brought a smirk to his face.

"She _totally did_."

"She didn't!" Anna spun to face him, the red of her freckles especially pronounced by the pink of her cheeks. "I got a parcel the other day stamped with the royal seal. There was a letter attached to it thanking my father for his services blah, blah, and it said something about thanking me too, I have no idea what for, but it was signed by the king. So I unwrapped the parcel and ta-da," she pinched the sides of the dress's skirt as if she were going to curtsy. "This was inside."

Kristoff scratched his chin in thought.

"Okay, so what I'm getting from that is the princess handpicked a fancy dress for you and had her father write the letter so as to not completely give away the fact that she's in love with the blacksmith's daughter."

"It was sent by the _king_, Kristoff," Anna huffed, though she secretly wished his theory were true and had to stop herself from daydreaming about such potential. "I doubt Princess Elsa even remembers who I am," she said, wistful and a bit melancholy as she hugged her arms to herself. The Princess of Arendelle was eighteen now, and beautiful and regal as ever. Anna had to squash the fluttering butterflies in her stomach when she recalled how Elsa had looked during the king's most recent appearance. A speech of some sort, his premonition of the year to come and the fertility of the kingdom - Anna had barely heard a word he'd said. She was stricken by the princess's beauty, who remained seated at her father's right hand a few feet behind him. The sharp, aristocratic gaze, her glowing skin, her slender neck encompassed by the high collar of her dress...

"Uh, pretty sure it's not easy to forget the face of the girl who knocks you flat onto the ground in front of the entire kingdom at the introduction of your own birthday festival."

Anna deflated and chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"Yeah, can we maybe not talk about that? It only haunts me every second of my life."

Despite Anna's brash entrance to the royal festival on Princess Elsa's fourteenth birthday, the king had regarded her warmly as well as Elsa herself. They were known to be a kind family, but experiencing their generosity firsthand was overwhelming. Between stutters and the nervousness clogged in her throat, Anna had managed to hold a handful of memorable conversations with the princess and they had spent a decent amount of the party in one another's company before Elsa had been swept away by her own royal duties as the guest of honor.

Anna specifically remembered the way Elsa had lingered when they were forced to part ways, the princess holding onto Anna's hand as they bid one another farewell.

Anna remembered even more specifically how she had bounded after Elsa once the older girl had turned her back and begun to walk away, tugging her into a tight embrace that expanded the whites of Elsa's eyes as a light blush dusted her pale skin.

"_It was so nice to meet you_," little Anna had whispered, eyes squeezed shut, and once the initial shock ebbed away, Elsa hugged her in return.

Anna remembered that was the warmest she'd ever been. A pleasant warmth – nothing like this drenching and miserable heat.

Regretfully, Princess Elsa had not hosted a public celebration of her birthday since then and had become quite recluse as time passed. Never particularly fond of throwing herself into the eyes of the public in the first place, the princess' mysterious absence was a gradual one. There had been a period of time in which the queen had ceased appearing in public as well, and she would not be seen again. The king was the only member of the royal family the kingdom saw for months. When Anna was thirteen, the queen suddenly and tragically passed away, leaving a grieving daughter and husband behind.

That resonated within her deeply and she felt a connection with the princess. She remembered with a pained clarity the day of the queen's death and she longed to reach out to Elsa even if they'd only met once. She understood her grief.

"It's not like she was mad," Kristoff reasoned, tugging Anna from her memories. "I mean, you wanted her to notice you, so technically you got what you wanted."

"I didn't want to end up on top of her –" Kristoff raised a brow. "Oh, stop looking at me like that, I was _eleven_!" She didn't bother defending her current age and that she was still very, very young. Certain thoughts had occurred in her mind by now and she was hideously embarrassed by all of them.

He held up his hands in surrender.

"I didn't say anything."

Anna sighed, dropping to the ground at Kristoff's side, leaning her back against his shoulder rather than the tree so that she sat perpendicular to him. She blew her fringe out of her eyes and rested her chin on her knees.

When she didn't pick up on where their banter had left off, he murmured a quiet, "Sorry."

She cast him a small, sad smile over her shoulder. Silence settled over them and rather than the usual, comfortable quiet that they mutually enjoyed in one another's presence due to years and years of close friendship, it was suffocating and tense. The trickle of the stream was suddenly a roaring river and the tweeting birds were an eerie scraping of metal against metal. Anna was typically the most bubbly person he knew. Her optimism and kindness was almost disgusting, she didn't have a rotten bone in her body and she smiled so much Kristoff would have sworn that was simply the default state of her face. She'd been acting strangely today in particular and he didn't want to push her, but the foreign sadness that emanated from her was bothersome.

"What's up, Anna?" he finally said.

Anna shrugged and the silence carried on a few moments further before she confessed, "Papa's going up to the mountains tomorrow."

Kristoff, if not already sobered by Anna's uncharacteristic and mellow behavior, dropped all thoughts of banter and teasing and his eyebrows branched toward the middle of his face. Guilt rippled within him. How had he forgotten?

"Are you going to go with him?"

"No," Anna shook her head. "I think he needs it, I think he needs to go on his own. He's asked to bring me before, but it wouldn't feel right." She hugged her knees to her chest and Kristoff laid the palm of his hand at the top of her spine.

"You lost her too, Anna," he reminded her gently.

"I know, I know that," her vision dulled and blurred as tears brimmed her eyes. "I can't help but think that he has a better reason to grieve, that he must miss her more. I hardly remember her."

Kristoff's frown carved deeper lines into his face and he looked away for a moment. To watch a bright spirit like Anna's break and fade in front of him was more painful than he'd like to admit. Even if he'd watched her crumble underneath this same fist many times before.

"It's not a competition of who misses her more. You lost your mother and you guys have to take care of each other, be there for each other. He invites you along because it can help both of you heal. You can help _each other_ heal."

Anna smiled, a small and quiet smile, and wiped the tears from her eyes. She drew a shaken breath and bit her lip.

"He deserves that time with her. I'd feel awkward. He shared all those years with her and I can't even remember her voice."

Kristoff sighed and pulled Anna flush against his side. It only took her a few moments to situate herself and tuck her head beneath his chin. His protruding adam's apple still seemed strange to her and it sparked a longing for her childhood. She longed for the past and she longed for her mother. Briefly, she wondered if the princess ever felt this way, if she gave into her own weakness and cried for what she'd lost. She wondered who's arms Elsa would cry in and she wondered if she was lonely up in the palace all the time. It didn't help her feel any better and she tried to stop wondering altogether.

"Do you want to go? Just you and me? I could take you up there and give you your space, or stick with you the whole time – whatever you wanted to do."

"Thank you, Kristoff," Anna said, grateful for him and his kindness. As sarcastic as they were with one another, as many bruises she had left on him as a child, he was her friend - more her brother, really - and her soul ached for him. She truly didn't know what she would do without him. "But not now. Maybe another time?"

"Another time, then," Kristoff murmured, holding her to his chest.

- - x - -

Hardegin was to return in three days.

He had departed far before the rise of the sun and woken Anna before he left. A batch of weapons was to be delivered to the castle's royal guard the next day; he had already loaded his wooden merchant's cart with the cargo and asked that Anna request Kristoff to haul it the following morning. A guard by the name of Leofrick would greet her at the castle gates and arrange the payment. With this information, he'd pressed a scratchy kiss to his daughter's forehead.

"I love you, Papa," she'd whispered as she touched his sandpaper cheek.

He'd always said Anna was truly the image of her late mother. She'd wondered if he saw his wife rather than his daughter that morning as his deep green eyes smiled sadly in return, his giant paw of a hand laying over Anna's on his cheek.

"I love you, child," his gravel voice rumbled gently. "Be safe and I will return soon."

Anna was sleeping once more before he'd even closed her bedroom door.

- - x - -

Arendelle was a relatively safe kingdom and with that said, even the safest of places had their share of danger. Thieves existed, she knew, but she'd never known someone to steal something so trivial as _wooden wheels. _She'd woken on the morning the royal guard's delivery was to be made and she was bound and determined to make such a delivery on her own. Her father had requested that she ask Kristoff to haul the heavy load to the palace, but she wanted to prove to herself she could do it without her best friend's help and so she'd never told him about it.

Upon approaching the connected extension of her cottage that was used as Hardegin's blacksmithing shop, she saw that the front entrance had been tampered with. Her heart rate instantly climbed to an alarming speed and her breath caught in her throat. She quickly swiped a small mallet from the work table at her side and held it behind her back, eyes scanning the workshop for any sign of an intruder.

"Hello?" she called naively.

Silence.

"If anyone's there, I'm not afraid to use this!" she swung the mallet from behind her back and braced her knees, holding it in an offensive stance. Her eyes continued to sway left and right. She began inching further into the room, turning in a continuous circle as she walked. As she came upon the merchant cart, she pulled back the sheet that covered it and was relieved to find the neatly arranged weapons still inside: swords with varnished sheaths that had beautiful carvings climbing up the length of them, heavy, squared war hammers, the curved twin blades of battle axes, spiked maces, metal and wooden shields alike, sheathed daggers. Her father must have been working on this batch for several months. The craftsmanship was beautiful and although Anna knew little about the technicalities of his work as a blacksmith, his passion was clearly reflected in the molded metal before her. She felt a fondness for her father and smiled to herself before it fully occurred to her how _many _weapons there were. There were more of them than she had predicted there would be and she felt an anxious nag at the back of her mind that she may not be able to pull this on her own.

That nagging grew into a full-blown panic as Anna stepped back and realized the wheels of the cart had been dismantled and stolen.

She dropped the mallet in her hand in surprise and narrowly avoided crushing her foot as it landed densely on the dirt floor. It was highly suspicious that someone had stolen something so obscure, but there were a pair of young twin boys that lived next door to Kristoff who had a tendency to wreak havoc in the village. She reasoned that they must have known her father would be gone and broke in for no other reason than to cause the chaos they so thrived on. It wasn't a solid theory, but it helped ease her worry that she had been, or was currently in any danger. The entire job had been done quite carelessly and upon closer inspection, she noticed a stampede of small footprints surrounding the cart.

"Ugh!" she groaned, taking a step back with her hand on her hips. How was she going to get this to the castle? She thought she'd have trouble pulling the cart there when it had _wheels_, how was she to do it now?

- - x - -

"Is that the entire delivery?"

The Royal Seal of Arendelle glared Anna in the face, much like the guard's dark, oaken eyes. A well-trimmed dust of charcoal sheathed his jaw. He spat his words distastefully, looking down upon her past the length of his nose at the single war hammer Anna had dumped at his feet. So Leofrick wasn't the most welcoming of people. Anna regretfully wished she'd asked for Kristoff's help.

"No! No, that's all I could carry, actually, uh, I plan on delivering the entire order to the castle personally, yessir, it might take me all day, but I'll be darn-tootin' if I don't get those swords and spiky mallets to you guys before the day is gone!" she swung her fist in a go-get-'em manner and laughed awkwardly. She was fighting to remain casual, but in reality she was dying to lay flat on the stone ground and swallow large gulps of air until she was able to catch her breath again. The muscles of her tiny arms pulsed with a growing ache. In her defense, the war hammer she'd brought along was the largest of the batch and it nearly surpassed the length of her own body.

"Where is the blacksmith?" Leofrick asked, irritated. His lip curled back as he spoke.

The uncomfortable smile fell from Anna's face and she wrung her hands.

"Oh...my papa, he's gone on a trip. He won't be back for a few days."

Leofrick laughed once.

"You expect us to accept this sort of service? _One _item at a time?" he advanced on her and Anna shrunk backward, her heel catching on a cobblestone behind her. She stumbled, but didn't entirely lose her footing. "You realize this was a highly important order made by the king? This is not a case of the captain doing inventory checks, you foolish, weak girl -"

"That's enough." A chilled voice silenced him and when Anna looked up, it felt as though the very core of her heart had been bitten with frost and she halted her own breath.

Anna could have cried. With relief or fear, she wasn't certain.

The princess stood behind Leofrick, an imposing and powerful presence at the gates of the castle. Her icy blue eyes bore into Anna's and she stood frozen to the stone beneath her feet. Leofrick turned and dropped to a bow on his knee with a '_clank_' of his armor, his gaze trained with shame on the princess's dainty feet. Princess Elsa regarded him coolly, the feline quality of her eyes seeming to narrow them even further.

"Leofrick," she began. "I'll not have any member of this kingdom harassed at my doorstep."

"No, of course not, Your Royal Highness," he agreed with haste.

"Then I'm certain you wouldn't mind explaining the sort of exchange that was happening upon my arrival?"

"Certainly," he lifted his head and met his princess's eyes out of respect. "Your father sent for the blacksmith several months ago, very high priority, and it was to arrive this morning. This girl...dropped a single hammer at my feet, the blacksmith nowhere to be seen. Then I'm told he's out of town on such an important morning. You must understand, Princess, the urgency in which the king requested this order be delivered. It was a tremendous workload for a single man to take on and your father knew it would be months before it was finished, but to be met with this? It's an insult to the king!"

Elsa looked to the hammer behind the bowed guard, then to the girl that stood petrified across from her. If it had been such an important delivery, Anna thought, why had her father left it in her hands?

"That girl is Hardigan's daughter," Elsa informed him evenly. Anna felt her head swim at the fact that the princess knew her father by name. "The blacksmith has been an important asset to Arendelle for a number of years and under my watch he and his family will be treated with respect."

"Your Highness, I understand, but this manner of delivery is unspeakable -"

"Then you will retrieve it."

Leofrick looked up to her in disbelief.

"That way, it's ensured to be in capable hands," she reasoned thinly and Leofrick's head dropped once more.

"Yes, of course."

Anna felt as though she had been watching the exchange happen from the bird's-eye view of a dream, her presence a floating and translucent one. Her heart had been lodged at the front of her throat since Elsa had spoken and she truthfully wasn't sure she was capable of speaking herself. She could hardly breathe. Not to mention her father had never said his assembly of weapons were of such high importance. She felt incredibly foolish and uninformed.

"The blacksmith's workshop is an easy one to locate, he'll fetch the weapons with no trouble."

Elsa's voice, cool and calm a second earlier, had taken on a softer sound. Still she held an air of authority while she spoke, but the edge was gone and her icy eyes had melted to a warmer degree. Anna was heavily delayed in realizing the princess was speaking to her and her saucer eyes latched onto Elsa dumbly, her lips parted in wonder. It took her a moment to understand that she was trying to placate her in telling her that Leofrick could retrieve the order on his own and she wouldn't have to worry over it any longer. She hadn't even noticed that Leofrick had gone.

"Are you alright?" Elsa had begun to approach her more closely and Anna swore she nearly fainted.

The question hurled her into a moment from the past, when she had found herself anchoring this beautiful woman to the snow covered ground on her birthday. Anna's mind was swimming away from the shore of the present and she felt herself beginning to drown.

"Anna?"

Suddenly she broke the surface of the water.

And nearly suffered an attack of some sort - whether one of the heart or born of panic she couldn't decipher - when the princess spoke her name. Elsa had hardly appeared in public for years and Anna hadn't spoken to her since she was eleven years old, merely a child. The gorgeous young woman that stood in front of her was an entirely different person. Same silken platinum blonde hair, same poise, same beauty, same air of calm and collected authority, but all of it had refined with age and Anna quite literally could not handle her presence so near to her. It was too much, far too much, and finally Anna gave into the darkness that fogged her vision and her mind. A soft noise expelled from her lips and her eyelids came down as she fainted, a pair of cool arms catching her. The last she remembered was the sensation of a body behind her own and chilled breath against her ear that carried the sound of her name again and again.


	3. Wake

**A/N:** I'm ecstatic to hear that people are enjoying the story! Thank you endlessly for your lovely reviews, favorites, and follows. I'd also like to state at this time that Anna will not remain fifteen for the duration of the entire story, but it is a window of time we'll be diving into for a bit. I'm kind of thriving off the fluff that keeps happening at my fingertips and it's making me want to run away from the angst to come.

_Frostbite Symptoms_

_Chapter Three;_

_Wake_

While Anna was still floating along the murky bridge between sleep and consciousness, she heard the echoes of a muffled conversation taking place a short distance away.

"I was advised to stop by your room to remind you that your piano lessons were moved to noon," a gentle, unfamiliar woman's voice spoke. It sounded weathered with age.

"I've requested that all of my lessons be cancelled for the day," this voice sounded familiar and Anna felt a certain fondness for it. "The healer said that she's in no immediate danger and she must have fainted from the heat, but I'd like to watch over her until she wakes safely."

"Of course," the kind voice said. "Poor thing..."

"I believe Leofrick gave her a fright as well."

"Oh, that Leofrick," the woman scolded. "He's a good fellow underneath that armor, but he's a soldier before he's a man."

"He'll be dealt with." The other voice said curtly.

"Don't be too hard on him," she laughed. "He does think the world of his princess."

Princess? Princess. _Princess_.

Anna's eyes snapped open and her surroundings came into view with a stark clarity. That word swung like a pendulum in her mind, back and forth, as did her gaze as she assessed the room she was in. Blue, everywhere. It painted and trimmed the walls, the sheets she lay wrapped in, the curtains of the bed's canopy, the furniture. Blue even seemed to hold a presence in the air; it was much cooler in this room than it had been outside. This was Princess Elsa's room, undoubtedly. Panic had her heart running laps up and down the staircase of her ribcage. She reached a hand over to the inside of her elbow and used her nails to pinch the skin there hard enough to bring tears to her eyes and her breathing picked up when she realized this most certainly was not part of her dream. She was awake and it appeared to be that she was in Princess Elsa's bed if she heard the previous conversation in the correct context.

She was awake in Princess Elsa's bed. She was in Princess Elsa's bed. Her bed. And she wished to watch over Anna personally until she woke.

She bit her lip and attempted to untie the knots in her abdomen as they formed. Her eyelids fluttered. Kristoff's laugh was loud in her ears.

_No, no, no, no, no, no._

"I'll leave you to her, then," the woman's voice from moments ago spoke again. Anna had missed the rest of their conversation during her revelation. She looked to the doorway and saw a thin woman with prominent laugh lines that quoted her mouth and her ashy grey hair sat upon her head in a bun that came loose in wisps that framed her kind face. She appeared to be middle-aged.

"Thank you," Elsa murmured gratefully, her back turned to Anna in the doorway. Her hands gripped the opposite bicep of each arm and her shoulders were raised as if she had paused mid-shrug. "If you could pass the word along that I'd rather not be disturbed unless absolutely necessary, I'd be very grateful."

"Certainly, darling," the other woman said, touching a hand to Elsa's cheek before she disappeared from the doorway.

Elsa closed the door then and kept her hand placed on it for several moments, seeming to be contemplating something. Anna hid her nose under the silken blue sheets she was tucked in and watched Elsa cross the room to a posh-looking chair with arms that sprouted from its sides in spirals. An open novel laying face down sat on the table beside her and she picked it up, settling into the chair comfortably. Her small frame was dwarfed by it and she sat with her knees tucked beneath her at an angle, her feet bare.

_She's so cute_, Anna thought and her eyelids drooped dreamily, dopey smile hidden beneath the sheets.

She was startled out of her hazy stupor by an irritated noise made by the princess. Her nose was buried in her novel and she appeared to be squinting at the text mere inches from her face. Anna watched in fascination. She sighed and set the novel in her lap, reaching for an oval-shaped case of some sort that sat on the end table. She turned it in her hands multiple times before opening it and extracting a pair of circular eyeglasses that she inspected with a frown. Finally, she slid them onto her face and as she did so, her eyes crossed. Anna's heart swelled and she had to bite her lip to keep from making a particularly embarrassing noise that would have brought attention to herself. She would have sworn her crush on the royal heir of Arendelle couldn't possibly increase to a higher degree, but she had never seen a goofy pair of glasses seated on the graceful bridge of her nose before. It was absolutely adorable. The princess's distaste for them seemed to make it even more appealing to Anna.

Once situated, Elsa retrieved her novel from her lap and set back to reading.

Her back straight, she held the book a decent distance from her face now. Her lips were just barely pursed and a frown tugged on her eyebrows. Anna found it almost comical how serious and poised the princess looked, coupled with the clumsy glasses that framed her eyes and how disgruntled she seemed to be from having to wear them. It reminded her that Elsa was human, that she wasn't perfect. In Anna's eyes, that somehow proved to increase her flawlessness.

Not wanting this to end - whatever _this _was - Anna closed her eyes (no matter how much she wished to continue her spying) and attempted to at least feign sleep. She imagined the round of teasing Kristoff would put her through when she told him of her adventurous morning and her daydreaming eventually blurred into actual dreaming. Predictably, she dreamt of Princess Elsa, but in the most innocent of ways. They lay on a bed of flowers upon a grassy hill, crowns of petals tied around their heads. Elsa was tucking a daffodil behind Anna's ear when she felt a cool hand on her cheek, then her forehead, brushing back her fringe. It felt heavenly on her heated skin. She exhaled the princess's name and a moment later, the cold touch was gone.

When her eyes opened and she roused from sleep for the third time that morning, she found Elsa, now lacking her glasses, watching her with concern. Her hand was held in a loose fist at her chest as if she had suddenly pulled it away. A gentle frown pulled her elegantly arched eyebrows together and if Anna wasn't mistaken, shame glossed her eyes and colored her cheeks.

All traces of sleep fled Anna's body as she realized she had woken calling out Elsa's name.

Her breaths shortened and grew shallow and Elsa looked in alarm to her charge, reaching out a hand but halting halfway.

"Please don't faint again," she pleaded sincerely.

Anna simply watched her, unable to move. A caged animal, feral with fear. She was beginning to believe functioning as a walking, talking human being was impossible if she was within a hundred feet of the woman in front of her.

"Um, the heat has been rather harsh lately, I figured you may be dehydrated," she awkwardly reached for a glass of water on her bedside table and Anna swore she watched it condensate in a matter of milliseconds in Elsa's grasp. It was presented to her with uncertain, shaking hands. She accepted it, meeting the princess's wary eyes.

Anna had never seen her behave this way before. Princess Elsa was the embodiment of grace. She constructed her sentences very meticulously and she seemed to glide rather than actually walk. Now it appeared that she was having trouble handing Anna a simple glass of water.

"Thank you," Anna breathed.

Elsa nodded, rubbing her wrists.

"I'd like to apologize on Leofrick's behalf," she seemed to regain her natural, graceful self for just a moment. "Sometimes his loyalty is too fierce for his own good, or the good of others. He truly means no harm and I assure you that your home was not intruded. He only entered the workshop and reported to me that the lock had been broken upon his arrival. It should be fixed and he won't be giving you any trouble from now on."

A moment passed with no response.

"You're gorgeous." Anna gushed bluntly.

Elsa's confidence shrunk inward again. The princess looked away, rubbing at her wrists once more. Quickly, Anna corrected her brash rudeness, circling the tip of her finger around the lip of the glass and avoiding eye contact. Her face burned and she wanted Elsa's icy touch on her again to soothe her skin. "I mean - what? I didn't - I don't - that was so rude, I'm so sorry -" she cut herself off to inhale deeply, then exhale. "I really can speak English, I swear."

Equal parts of her wanted to escape this very second, and never leave.

"It's okay," Elsa assured her softly. Just as Anna had remembered four years ago, her smile shone in her eyes more than the actual lilt of her mouth. Elsa's eyes were extraordinarily expressive. There was a fond crinkling at the corners of them. She hesitantly took a stiff seat on the edge of her bed and Anna watched her nervously. "Are you feeling better? I was quite horrified when you passed out like that."

Anna wished it would happen again. Then maybe she'd never wake up and suffer the embarrassment of whatever words tripped out of her mouth while speaking to the princess.

"I'm fine. I'm good," she said, holding her breath. Holding back any words she could. She didn't trust her tongue. "The heat, y'know?" she swiveled a hand, gesturing to the air around them. Not trusting her physical coordination either, she set the glass back on the bedside table, untouched.

"Yes," Elsa nodded, seeming to commit rather seriously to the small talk. Anna simply tried her best to focus on the conversation at hand to quell her staring. "I had you rest in my room, it tends to be the coolest in the palace...Perhaps too cool because I found you wrapped up in the sheets a little while later."

Anna looked down at the silk blue sheets in her lap.

"Oh, I-I'm not cold. I feel wonderful, actually. You've been very kind," she said shyly.

"I've been _decent_," Elsa corrected. " After Leofrick's mistreatment of you, I owe you more than a nap in my bed."

Anna twiddled with her fingers nervously. Kristoff was howling at the back of her mind again.

"He was right to be angry," she finally murmured."I must've looked like an idiot, bringing a single weapon to him like that..." Anna looked to Elsa, hoping to find answers in her face that perhaps the princess would not relay with words. "My papa never mentioned that it was so important. Is there a war coming? Is there something Arendelle needs to be protected from? I always thought the military was well off."

"Something like that," Elsa looked to the window. It didn't placate Anna in the least. "As the king's daughter, there is information I can't disclose, but you're in no danger." She brought her eyes back to Anna's. "I promise."

There was a fierceness, a sharp conviction in Elsa's tone. Anna felt she was unaware of something crucial.

"I believe you," she said a moment later.

Elsa stood.

"My father has requested me, but I won't be long," the way Elsa spoke of him was distant. Anna wondered what their relationship was like - when Elsa was young it seemed she was very close with both of her parents. Perhaps her mother's passing had divided them? She couldn't imagine life without her papa. "If you're hungry, I can have food brought to you here while I'm gone. Or if you'd like to rest longer, I can come get you once I'm finished and we can have lunch in the hall," a sudden realization dawned on her and her typically feline-like eyes bugged like an owl's, "Or, of course, if you'd like to go now I can have you escorted from the palace so as to ensure you aren't met with any trouble by the staff or the guards. I imagine you have things to do and wouldn't wish to wait around, and I did sort of kidnap you in a way." She grimaced.

Anna absolutely feasted on Elsa's awkwardness. While she wasn't sputtering and stuttering and burning red in the cheeks like Anna's constant state around her, she was having difficulty molding her sentences and she was second guessing herself. Anna smiled and touched the princess's forearm, feeling a burst of bravery fueled by Elsa's nervous demeanor. For someone else to be the one fumbling with words for once - especially the royal princess she was so taken with - it encouraged her.

"I'll wait."

Elsa hesitantly lay a hand over Anna's.

"Okay."

Their eyes held to one another as if they had been tethered and Anna felt that familiar overwhelming urge to pull the princess to her like she had years ago.

"Anna? Are you -?"

The tether snapped and frayed. She suddenly remembered why she had fainted in the first place. She saw a blurry moment from mere hours ago - Elsa had spoken her name at the palace gates, that worried look in her eyes of endless depth. It quite literally knocked her out.

"Wait, how do you remember my name? We've only met once and it was so long ago."

"You remember mine, don't you?"

Elsa was playing coy and Anna was too confused to notice or be flustered by it.

"Well, yes, of _course_, but you're the _princess_. I'm just...Anna." She had practically known Elsa's name before learning her own.

"I remember you very well," Elsa murmured honestly, the playful edge of her tone dulled. The coy twinkle in her eyes had dissipated and she looked to be reflecting upon something that Anna couldn't see.

Anna stared, unsure of what to say. Elsa remembered _her_? How many people did the Princess of Arendelle see on a daily basis, and she recalled their encounter four years ago?

Elsa had approached the door, the handle in her grasp. She was watching Anna with an unreadable expression and the air grew frigid cold as opposed to the comfortable temperature it had been. Goosebumps had begun to rise along Anna's freckled arms and she saw her breath expel from her lips in clouds. Then, Elsa opened the door and swept from the room with one last look, bringing the cold with her. Almost instantly, the crisp atmosphere turned soggy with heat and Anna sat bewildered in the princess's bed.

Once more, she pinched the inside of her elbow. The pain registered clearly to her brain and she flopped back onto the pillows.


	4. The Painting Room

**A/N: **Thank you for the continued support, you guys! Your reviews are the story's lifeblood, really.

_Frostbite Symptoms_

_Chapter Four;_

_The Painting Room_

Elsa's powers had birthed a heavy self-hatred within her at a young age. They had reserved her tongue and masked her face. She was taught by her parents and by her own conscience to conceal herself, to shroud the monster she was.

_The people will not_ _understand,_ they'd said.

_They'll try to hurt you._

_They'll fear you and they will come for you._

Be approachable, but stay distant. They'll love you as long as they don't know you.

Her childhood was lonely and vacant - she was not to make friends until she could discipline the power she held. It was too dangerous. Her private tutoring followed a strict schedule and she spent very little time with actual instructors of any sort - she did much of the reading on her own once she was taught how. Dancing lessons were never asked for, but she longed to learn. It was a pipe dream; dancing warranted too much physical contact. She couldn't directly touch her mother's face without the barrier of gloves, let alone hold a dance partner for lessons. She learned the four walls of her room best.

Her father's was limited, but her mother worked to show as much physical affection as she could to make up for Elsa's lonely world. Combing slender fingers through her blonde hair, a hand on her cheek while she spoke, long hugs, holding her daughter's hand as they walked. Even pulling off her gloves when the king was not present to smooth her fingers over Elsa's palms. To touch the invisible scars there. It was a blatant act of trust that profoundly shook Elsa's soul.

As a result of the queen's passing, Elsa's wintry abilities grew with pained fervor and her fingertips wreaked a cold chaos that she could not calm. She had been making a headway with her progress and she was giddy with excitement at the prospect of true control, true freedom. The veil of normalcy. It was a deep inhale of fresh air, only for her lungs to collapse and the air became harder to swallow than it ever had been. The queen's death sent her backpedaling. Her mourning was a means for loss of control and Elsa's blistered heart shied away from the sun having forgotten that it could touch her without burning her. Or perhaps, it had never known.

She remembered not the last words the queen had spoken to her on the day of her death. She remembered not what she wore. She'd remembered the warm press of her mother's lips to her open palm, like gauze on a raw, open wound, before she'd passed and Elsa had sobbed on her knees at the edge of the queen's deathbed.

Her outburst of anguish meant punishment. It was not done out of spite or malicious intent by the king's hand - it was his knee-jerk reaction to Elsa's lack of supervision over her own power. It was his precaution for his kingdom. It was, ultimately, panic-ridden judgement. Gradually, Elsa had not publicly appeared for quite some time - she had been dedicating her days to finally conquering herself, to finally freeing herself. After the death of the queen, for an undetermined amount of time, Elsa was not to appear at Arendelle's festivities. She would not be at her father's right hand for speeches. Her private tutoring lessons would be postponed until further notice. With already limited contact, this turn of events hurled a steel wall between herself and the outside. For a year, the world became familiar in books, in conversations the wind would throw her way when her window was open, in memories of the past. The days pulsed like a dying heartbeat until her resolve straightened its spine and she fit the mask over her face again, tugged the gloves up to her wrists again.

Often, a little girl with bright orange hair and brighter eyes had come to mind.

_Anna_.

Anna was the first touch of sun she'd had without a scar to show for it. Anna was summer contained in a tiny person. Anna wielded a power that was so unlike her own - not destructive and cold and ugly.

But the sunlight she cast on Elsa was not without its shadow. For all her warmth and kindness, a parasitic guilt had settled in the mouth of Elsa's ribs long ago and it rippled with a certain hunger when the princess thought of those freckles, that nose, those eyes, that laugh.

Solitude conjured images of her in Elsa's mind, scenarios that filled the many gaps of knowledge she didn't possess. She longed to know her beyond the short time they'd shared in the past. Elsa remembered she'd had a penchant for touching, particularly Elsa's hands. It felt deeply intimate - her palms knew only the insides of gloves and her mother's fingerprints, and now they'd become acquainted with the spaces between Anna's fingers. The weapons shackled to her wrists were being pacified and disengaged and for the first time in a long time she had felt the blood in her fingertips as Anna intertwined their hands.

She'd felt that rush of blood pumping from her heart like a waterfall in spring when she'd found Anna at the castle gates that morning. Now, her heart pumped like a leaky faucet as she stood across the room from Arendelle's king.

The throne room was expansive and encompassed a loneliness that ordered a foreign chill up Elsa's spine. Optimistic about Elsa's capability to command her powers, her father had been preparing her to rule from a young age, educating her on the regulations of trade, how to best dictate her voice when speaking to her kingdom as a whole or, in contrast, during political meetings. How to calculate when to forfeit and when to conquer. How to bolt that mask to her face. She followed the motions like a puppet, her wrists tied to his hands. She would be her father's daughter.

As she stood now, her mother yet ruled the seat beside the king as far as she was concerned and she possessed little to no interest in taking her place as queen, no matter how long the slot had been vacant. She was too small for the mold. She was not enough. The shape of her mother's mouth burned on her palm.

Her father looked small with the seat empty beside him.

"How is Hardigan's girl?" A hand rubbed his trimmed chin and Elsa's eyes narrowed, her tongue sharp and ready to cut with her words. His casual demeanor was a stark contrast to her stiff spine and the hard seam of her pressed lips. His intentions were good, but she expected him to carry the full weight of his actions. Her shoulders ached holding it up on her own.

Elsa said nothing and her fists tightened at her sides. She scrutinized him from a fair distance away and his nonchalance brought her blood to a simmer. The guilt in her heart burned as her ribcage flared open with anger. It was not a guilt she solely owned.

Her jaw pulled taut, like a loaded bow. Then, the arrow fired from her throat, "You know her name, why don't you use it?"

Startled, he removed his hand from his chin and straightened his posture.

"Elsa," he scolded, strong brows set low over his eyes. It was a soft reprimand, one of understanding, but a reprimand nonetheless.

"Well, why don't you?"

He sighed. His mustache pulled over his upper lip like a frown and warily, he gave in.

"How is Anna feeling?" he asked, but dropped his question like broken glass when he caught sight of Elsa's naked hands. "Where are your gloves? Have you not been tending to her yourself?"

"I have," Elsa confirmed. "Anna is safe."

"Elsa, she _must _not be harmed," he stood from his throne. Not as a threatening gesture, but to emphasize his point.

"I'm confident she won't be. I wouldn't put her in any danger," Elsa's anger was melting into desperation. He was refusing to see what she was showing him, he was refusing to hear her words. Though, truthfully, she wasn't sure they'd ever even so much as spoken the same language. Her tone lost its edge and lowered to a quiet sort of plea. "I'm not dangerous to her."

"You haven't been around her enough to know that."

"I haven't been given the _chance,_" Elsa fired her words with the intention of blame and the bullet hit him square in the chest. He watched her, his expression pained, and she passed some of the weight back onto his shoulders. "Father, please, give me just this," she pleaded.

He stood a moment longer, searching the despair on his daughter's face, and expelled a defeated sigh that fogged in the air. He hadn't picked up on the temperature drop before, but as he looked to Elsa's feet and saw the sheet of frost under them, his decision was made swiftly.

"Hardigan will be expecting her home," he said with an air of finality, a heavy mallet swung.

The first string on Elsa's wrist snapped.

- - x - -

As captivating as it was to be taking residence in Princess Elsa's bedroom, Anna found herself sneaking out of it and wandering down the massive palace halls. She wanted to soak up as much of the castle as she could while she was there, as if the different rooms and paintings and empty suits of armor could tell her more about her to learn, she utilized all of her senses and soaked up her environment like a sponge. She listened with her eyes, taking in the elegant accessories of the palace, the architecture. It was all incredibly beautiful, but she couldn't ignore the lonely atmosphere that hung over her shoulders.

She stopped in one particular room that was adorned with paintings on nearly every inch of the walls. It was like the buzzing excitement of discovery halted abruptly in her chest as she stepped in, her hand dragging along the wall before she whirled slowly, her jaw dropped in amazement and wonder. There were paintings of all sorts, the heavy oil colors crafted into scenery of the seasons, royal portraits, armored soldiers. She stopped in front of a painting of Elsa's parents. The stoic downward pull on her father's face seemed uncharacteristic for him as a man, but suited a king. The queen looked passive and extraordinarily beautiful. Elsa possessed a remarkable resemblance to her mother.

"_There_ you are."

Anna's shoulders jumped at the greeting and she turned to find the princess in the doorway. Relief seemed to flood her face and Anna found herself enjoying any bit of animation to Elsa's expression considering how stoic she had been in public for years. Guilt dashed her enjoyment rather quickly and she upchucked an apology.

"I'm sorry, I know I said I would wait for you. It's just, _wow_, this room is amazing! The whole castle is amazing, actually, well, what I've seen of it anyway," she shrugged, a guilty smile on her face.

"It okay," Elsa laughed behind her hand as she entered the room. Anna's outbursts had already gone from alarming to quite endearing. "I'm just glad you're alright. Thank you for making my bed, though," she quipped. Anna had left the blankets every bit of the mess they'd been while she was wrapped in them.

Anna's smile faded to a single stipple at the corner of her mouth, thwarted into a stupor by Elsa's dainty laughter. She wanted to pull that reaction from her more often.

"I always liked this room, too," Elsa continued as she approached Anna, her eyes focused on the paintings that surrounded them. "They don't talk back, but they can be good company sometimes. They're good with listening," a small smile punctuated her words and Anna found that Elsa was both making a joke and allowing some insight of her life. It made the joke a bit sour to Anna's ears.

"It's a nice room," she said, tipping her head back to observe the wall past Elsa's head. The greeting was quickly fading into awkward small talk and she was working desperately in her mind to absolve the building tension, to keep the conversation going. When she brought her gaze back down, Elsa stood in front of her and it only served to immobilize her brain further. Until she caught sight of the nearly translucent freckles that peppered Elsa's face - she hadn't noticed them earlier, her mind had been fogged with sleep. She gasped, a small, quiet thing that barely inflated her lungs at all.

"You have freckles, too," Anna breathed, mesmerized as she touched Elsa's face with one hand. Her blue eyes were glazed and they flitted over the light dusting of speckles across Elsa's nose. Elsa held very still, searching Anna's face. "I always hated them on me, but they look so nice on you."

"Oh," Elsa whispered and Anna jerked her hand back, suddenly aware of her actions. _You're always touching, Anna. You're too touchy_, she heard Kristoff say, his burly arms waving her off like he was spreading pixie dust. Really, a man as endowed as Kristoff was overly afraid of affection. She didn't see the same distaste reflected on Elsa's face before her and it slowed her heartbeat a bit. The princess cleared her throat, building back the strength of her voice. "Yours are very nice." She swallowed. "I like them."

Anna chuckled awkwardly, tucking phantom hair behind her ear then hung her arms at her sides. "You're just saying that, you don't owe me a compliment in return -"

"N-no," Elsa extended her hands in a gesture of peace. "They're lovely."

Anna bit her tongue to still the words in her throat. To still the stirring in her chest. It wasn't enough to stop her from talking.

"Your reading glasses are pretty lovely, too," she said a moment later, looking suspiciously to her left and Elsa's eyes grew. An impish smirk plucked one corner of her mouth.

Elsa was taken aback, her eyes narrowing, "My _reading_ - how do you know about _those_?"

Anna's top row of teeth bit down on the smile on her lips. Elsa lifted a hand to perch it on her own hip as she leaned toward the younger girl, meeting her at eye level.

"Were you even sleeping? Or did you fake your fainting episode purposely in front of me to get into my room and dig up all my secrets?" Elsa asked with a further playful narrowing of her eyes.

"_Yes,_" Anna sighed theatrically. "It was my plan all along. I just had to know if her Royal Highness wore glasses. The rumors were scandalous."

"It's a very scandalous matter," Elsa concurred and her lightly speckled cheeks spread into a smile when Anna broke into a fit of giggles.

Once she recovered, Anna spent a long moment searching Elsa's face again. Not necessarily admiring her freckles or imagining those glasses framing her eyes, but simply enjoying Elsa's company.

"I think they suit you," Anna finally said. "They have a certain air of - intelligence, sophistication," she clarified, though in all honesty she simply found the image of Elsa in glasses one far too adorable not to appreciate.

"I don't think those clumsy things suit the face of any princess," she responded, her disdain for her glasses present in her tone. Her voice swapped for a gentler timbre as she continued,"but your freckles suit you just fine." Anna reveled deeply in the soul-searching look Elsa gave her. She felt those eyes digging inside of her, searching through her crevices and shadows. Looking for answers to questions that Anna didn't even know existed, but she felt the presence of them in the inquiring twinkle of Elsa's gaze. She crumbled underneath the curious and intense scrutiny - Elsa looked as though she had a million things to say.

Anna, at a loss for words herself on the current topic, managed to pull her lips into a small smile as she requested quietly, "Do you think you could show me more of the castle? I mean, I doubt there are too many tour guides more fit for the job than you, and I'm just dying to see more. This is all so beautiful and interesting," she gushed, her fists held under her chin.

"Oh," Elsa seemed torn for a moment, taking advantage of the pause to grasp for excuses. "Well, you should be returning to your father, shouldn't you? He'll be wondering where you've gone. And I've got lessons to resume -"

"My papa's gone another day, he's taken a trip," Anna informed her, then held up her pointer finger. "And don't tell me you've got a busy schedule because I know you cleared it, I heard you."

"Exactly how many things did you hear?" Elsa murmured, though there was a mischievous rise of one eyebrow.

"_Please_, Elsa?" Anna pleaded, ignoring the question and clasping her hands together. She quickly corrected her use of the princess's title at the blank, surprised look she received. "I mean, Princess Elsa, of course - I didn't mean -"

"No," Elsa interrupted gently. "Please, call me Elsa. It's nice to hear that once in awhile."

Anna looked to be hesitant. She'd never referred to the princess without her royal title before and it felt intimate for Elsa's name to be absent of it on her tongue. It made her all the more human, all the more real. Her current situation - being present in the royal castle of Arendelle in Princess Elsa's company - dawned on her once again. Not wanting to herd another awkward rain cloud over their heads, she carried on, "Okay, _Elsa_. Please?" her smile grew wide as she fluttered her eyelashes at the princess.

Elsa considered her answer, glancing from Anna to the doorway of the painting room. She wrung her hands and her teeth gnawed at the swell of her lower lip until her eyes came back to Anna. Her father's protesting voice at the back of her mind hardened her will and emboldened her resolve.

"Okay," she whispered, and Anna squealed, all her weight supported by the tips of her toes. "_But _you have to stay near me at all times. It's very important that you don't leave my side."

Anna nodded emphatically, that was not going to be a problem.


	5. Margot

**A/N: **I'm horribly sorry about how long this has taken to update, I didn't have time to write until a few days ago, unfortunately. But here it is, finally! Enjoy!

_Frostbite Symptoms_

_Chapter Five;_

_Margot_

They'd gone on a lovely, albeit short tour of the castle so far, Elsa taking special care to avoid her father's study or the throne room even though Anna begged to see the latter. _Another time_, Elsa had told her and Anna had accepted that eventually once she realized Elsa was insinuating there would _be _another time.

Once they'd explored the royal dining hall, an idea had sparked in Anna's mind and the way it exploded behind her eyes was too much for Elsa to deny her when she insisted that they return to the princess's chambers to fetch a pair of stockings. Anna may have been regretting her choice when Elsa dressed behind a three-panel screen while she waited on the edge of the princess's bed, humming to distract her mind from the happenings behind that screen. It was difficult enough being near Elsa, having Elsa speak to her, laugh with her, genuinely enjoy spending this time with her, let alone for her to undress mere feet away from a girl that was hopelessly and helplessly in love with everything she did and didn't know about the princess.

_Don't you dare faint, _she'd scolded herself as Elsa tossed her dress over the edge of the screen to change into one less constricting of movement. _Don't imagine her, don't imagine _anything_, just don't._

She'd crossed her ankles then, and twiddled her thumbs while she stared at the high ceiling of Elsa's bedroom, chewing her bottom lip.

Their day had hardly begun and she had already been _dying _to relay her adventures to Kristoff - most likely in a voice far too high pitched and words too quickly fired for him to properly understand what she was saying, but he would pick up on words like _princess _and _Elsa _and it would be all he would need to hear.

Eventually, Elsa had emerged from behind the screen wearing a sky blue dress that tied into a wilted bow at the nape of her neck and left her calves exposed, the skirt pleated and light. A tiny, cream colored bow rested at the top center - all in all, it was a very simple dress that seemed much more appropriate for summer than what she had been previously wearing. The hard lines of Elsa's collar bones caught shadows in their hollows and her slender, narrow shoulders shrunk inward on themselves shyly. Her skin seemed as if it had never seen the sun before, and Anna had already known how pale Elsa was, but she'd never seen more than her face and very little of her neck. She had tied her hair into a loose braid that hung over one shoulder and brushed her fringe to one side. Wisps of blonde hung around her face and framed her icy eyes. Her hands were clasped within one another as she hesitantly regarded Anna and wiggled her now white stocking-covered toes.

Anna had refrained from making a verbal comment, thankfully, but a million thoughts tripped over and under one another inside of her mind and she could practically feel her pupils molding into little red hearts about to pop from her eye sockets. She figured hiding her attraction was futile at this point, yet she didn't want to spoil anything with her clumsy words.

Elsa reached for a pair of white gloves on her vanity and Anna's voice stopped her, "What d'you need those for? It's a sauna out there!"

She laughed once, nervously. "Formal habit, I guess," she said, placing the gloves back onto the dresser.

Anna had seen Elsa wear gloves more often than not, but she shrugged it off. Come to think of it, the king often wore gloves as well, so it must have been a formal thing and Elsa must have been used to wearing them when attending important events which were the only times she tended to be seen, if then. Anna had the same kind of habit with tying her hair into braids.

At Anna's request, Elsa had led them to an all but abandoned wing of the castle that had housed servants generations before Elsa's own, when there had been many more members of the royal family to cater to. Anna had asked for secluded, but open, and this was exactly what she had been searching for.

"I can't believe you've never done this," Anna said as she pulled the pumps from her feet. She twisted her ankles in place, experimentally feeling out the texture of the floor and found it to be wonderfully smooth underneath her stocking clad feet. "This has been a huge wasted opportunity! I don't have enough open space in my house to do it properly, but you practically have space _dedicated_ to it. You have an entire _castle _of slip 'n slide glory."

"Yes, I can't believe I've inhabited this earth for eighteen years without defacing my stockings by skidding around the castle floors," Elsa agreed as she pulled off her own shoes.

Anna lifted a helmet guard with one finger and peered into it, her voice echoing inside the iron armor as she said, "You've really been wasting your time."

"Well, it's a good thing you're here to fix that," Elsa whispered playfully, her voice much closer than it had been moments ago, close enough to _feel._ Anna jolted in surprise and the guard of the helmet dropped back down, her arms reeling as her feet slipped and she tipped backwards. Pleasantly, she fell into Elsa's arms rather than onto the hard, unforgiving surface of the wooden floor and she sighed in relief.

Again, she felt Elsa's breath on her neck, in the form of a giggle this time.

"How many times are you going to fall on me?"

Her relief quickly melted into hot embarrassment that boiled the blood in her cheeks.

"Psh, I'm just trying to keep you on your toes," she scoffed, willing away the blush.

"And I'll try to keep you on yours," Elsa said, giving Anna a gentle push that set her back on the soles of her feet.

Anna turned and her teeth caught her bottom lip as a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth, like she had a secret on her tongue. So far, Elsa seemed to have a habit of alternating between quite shy and a bit scandalously brave, and Anna had felt herself making that switch several times as well. They were playing off of one another, at the opposite sides of the spectrum constantly pulling each other to the other side and swapping between a few brave touches and awkward laughs and blushes. She watched the way Elsa watched her, with such attentiveness and intensity. Like every word Anna said was of very high importance. It made her stomach twist and strangle the butterflies wildly fluttering inside it.

"Only if you can keep up!" she burst, the words exploding past her lips like a ball from a canon, before she sprinted down the length of the hallway.

Elsa stared dumbly after her until Anna threw a grin over her shoulder and that was enough to beckon the princess.

Quite naturally graceful, Elsa was at a loss as she strode after Anna, her feet slipping without her permission. A few times she nearly performed an impromptu and very unrehearsed show of the splits as she slipped and slid with all the grace of a newborn deer commandeering its twiggy legs on a frozen pond for the first time. She felt entirely out of place, but as she neared Anna - who had had the decency to wait for Elsa to catch up eventually - she realized she was having quite a bit of fun. Elsa made a particularly confident sprint the last few feet toward Anna and laughed freely, the younger girl catching her by the elbows before they collided.

"I'm not very good at this," Elsa confessed as she dug her nails into the skin of Anna's elbows for support, eyes nervously trained on her unsteady feet.

"Hey," Anna murmured softly and it brought Elsa's eyes back to her. "It's like ice skating - and I _know _you're good at that. I've seen you do it. Pretend this floor is ice and you've got your skates on. Besides, sliding around the floor on your stockings isn't exactly a sport one has to, or even _can_ be good at," she laughed. "It's just for fun."

"Okay," she said slowly. "But I still think this is silly," she admitted with a small smile.

"Of course it's silly! That's the point."

Elsa opened her mouth to speak when a moment later, her eyes caught sight of something - something _frightening _by the looks of it - over Anna's shoulder.

"Elsa!" a man's voice boomed, an explosion of angry authority. Anna froze and turned her head to drink in the sight of the king, his eyes ablaze even from a distance and she couldn't help but think they'd been caught doing something they weren't supposed to be. She noticed Elsa seemed frozen in place, too. "You are required in the council room for a meeting. At once." His rough, angry stare shifted to Anna. It clashed harshly with her memory of him. Then he had been kind and welcoming, all open arms and warm smiles. Anna wondered if he was the reason they'd had to sneak around the castle. "Leofrick will escort her from the castle -"

"No!" Elsa interrupted, catching Anna's wide, frightened eyes. She stepped in front of the younger girl protectively and Anna seemed to shrink behind her. "Father, let me send for Margot, please."

The king looked to his daughter sternly before his gaze was caught between the two young women before him. Elsa's breathing had become heavy and her stance was almost defensive in front of Anna.

"I will fetch Margot," he said, stiffly adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. "She'll meet you both at your quarters, and then I expect you at the council room with no further delay."

"I'll be there as soon as Margot comes for Anna," Elsa agreed with haste.

"I await your arrival, then," he said, shooting Elsa one final, burning look before he swept from the hall.

The moment now entirely soured, Anna couldn't withhold her distaste of the king's behavior. A low whistle blew from her lips.

"_Jeez_, what crawled up his butt and died? Does he always talk to you like that? Like, don't get me wrong, royal meetings - or council meetings, whatever - are very important, I'm sure, but what gives him the right to treat you like that? Talk about a crankster, man, I oughtta -"

"Anna," Elsa admonished softly.

Anna held up a hand and winced, "He's also the king and your father and so I'd very much like it if you forgot everything I just said."

Elsa laughed and shook her head.

"No, he is being a bit of a..." she paused. "He's not typically that cross with me, or anyone for that matter," she said, though Anna didn't entirely buy into the excuse. The way Elsa had seemed so small under the boom of his voice made her knuckles itch. Her arms were self-consciously wrapped around her middle and Anna wondered if she was ashamed to be seen in a summer dress by her father - she'd never seen her in one before.

"If you say so," she mumbled skeptically.

- - x - -

Elsa had stepped into her room to change into a more suitable dress for a meeting while Anna waited in the hallway, her back against the wall and her eyes on her shoes. This short time with the princess had been heavenly and Anna found herself searching the darkest, dustiest corners of her mind for a reason or an excuse to see her again - and Elsa wasn't even gone yet. She had to come up with _something. _Surely she could conjure up an idea that wouldn't sound as desperate as she felt.

The click of Elsa's bedroom door shutting behind her jolted her out of her thoughts and as Anna moved to greet her, she noticed two things: the old woman that had been at the door when Anna had fainted was walking toward them from the far side of the hallway, and Elsa was wearing gloves again. Her change of dress was concealing, far more typical of the princess from Anna's observation, with a once again high collar and sleeves that went all the way to her wrists where the fabric transitioned to the gloves she was wearing. Not that she minded Elsa's dresses - they were always breathtaking, after all. She simply wondered how she could possibly stand so much fabric on such a sweltering day.

"I'm sorry our time was cut short," Elsa apologized as she folded her hands together formally. Anna felt a deflation of disappointment, it seemed Elsa was retreating from her and they had taken steps backward. As someone who jumped to conclusions and altogether tended to jump into everything in general far too eagerly, Anna tried to remind herself that this had only been one day and there would be more to come. What reason would Elsa have to open up to her so rapidly? She had to give her time. "Margot should be here any moment -"

So, that old woman was _Margot_.

That discovery amped up Anna's desperation as she realized how little time they actually had left; Margot was only so many yards away.

"Elsa," she interrupted the princess and startled her out of her polite and professional demeanor. "When can I see you again?" she whispered quickly, head tilted so that her lips were mere breaths from the shell of Elsa's ear. Her eyes nervously flitted to the ever nearing form of Margot.

As Elsa replied, her lips moved so little, it hardly appeared she was speaking at all.

"I'm not sure now is the best time to discuss that," she said, her hands tightening on one another.

"There aren't exactly a lot of other options," Anna whispered in return, touching Elsa's arm. The princess stiffened. "Please. Name whenever, I'll be there."

_So much for not sounding desperate_, she thought.

Elsa took a moment to herself, closing her eyes as she inhaled.

"Tomorrow," she said as she opened them again. "After sundown. If you can, meet me at the -"

"Yes," Anna answered eagerly and Elsa smiled fondly at the premature affirmation. Anna winced. "Sorry, keep going."

"Meet me at the edge of the forest, where the village ends and the trees begin," she whispered. "Off the dirt path, head into the trees toward the castle."

"I'll be there," Anna said, pulling away just as Margot approached them. Both girls straightened their backs.

Anna was able to observe Margot more properly now and she instantly liked the kind and mischievous twinkle in her deep green eyes. Elsa appeared to have a cherished connection with her; her mouth relaxed into a gentle smile and her tense posture melted as well. That served to deepen Anna's liking of the old woman - anyone Elsa seemed to feel such familial affection for was good in her book.

"Margot," Elsa greeted the old woman warmly. Margot's mouth, puckered with wrinkles and age, spread into a smile.

"It seems our little charge has woken without incident," she said, looking to Anna, who shrunk under her gaze shyly.

_Well, I don't know about that..._

"How are you feeling, dear?" she asked, touching a hand to Anna's warm cheek.

"O-oh, I'm well, thank you. I've been very well taken care of, Elsa has been extremely kind."

"She does have a warm heart, that one," Margot smiled, crinkling her eyes affectionately. "And I'm glad to hear it," she pulled her hand from Anna's cheek and rested it on her own hip. "Now, you'll be going with me so I can send you on your way with no further trouble from certain guards of this castle."

Anna dipped her head into a slight bow and folded her hands, "I appreciate you going out of your way, you must be busy -"

Margot waved her hand dismissively, "Oh, nonsense. I'm glad to help. I'm sure Princess Elsa would prefer to do the job herself were she not preoccupied."

Elsa coughed quietly into her hand.

"Anyway," Margot said, rescuing Elsa from further embarrassment. "Let's be going, dear. It'll be good for you to get some fresh air and out of this stuffy castle."

Margot turned to leave and as she did, Anna nervously looked over her shoulder to ensure the older woman's back was turned. Confirming it was, she leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to Elsa's cheek, whispering closely in her ear, "Thank you. For everything." Before Elsa could react, she quickly ran up behind Margot, tucking a strand of her own red hair behind her ear, nerves buzzing. She felt both faint and the shocks of adrenaline surging in her veins, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

Margot gave Elsa a knowing smile over her shoulder as the princess touched a gloved hand to her cheek.

- - x - -

"What do you mean!? She's been gone for hours without telling anyone where she went! She could be in danger, we could be running out of time as we speak!"

Kristoff's fingers were tangled wildly in his own blonde hair, nails scraping his scalp in frustration. Anna had been nowhere to be seen, nor had she given any word as to where she could be. He'd checked their usual spot by the creek, the workshop, and he'd split up with his reindeer, Sven - who was just as loyal to Anna if not moreso - to search high and low throughout the village to no avail. His last hope was to interrogate the guards at the castle. He'd hoped one of them had seen her on patrol, but they had no good news to share.

Sven headbutted the guard who stood solemnly next to the one Kristoff was begging for help and he grunted, holding a hand on the abdomen of his armor.

"Keep your animal under control, please," the first guard said bitterly. "The royal guard does not conduct search parties for villagers without consent or order by the king."

"That's a _load _of -"

"Kristoff!" Anna shouted in delight, squeezing between the barely open castle gates before she threw herself at her friend, wrapping her arms around his neck. Sven eagerly nudged her behind and she turned, laughing as she scratched his furry chin. He stomped his front legs and closed his eyes contentedly.

"Anna?" Kristoff's voice cracked comically, confusion replacing the expression of anger he'd had on his face moments ago. He saw an old woman adorned in royal staff's clothing standing behind the gates, waving a single hand to Anna with a smile on her face. Anna waved back to her as she pulled away from Kristoff. "Where have you -? Why are you..._What_?" he sputtered.

Anna grabbed his hands and bounced in place, pulling him away from the castle gates.

"I have _so _much to tell you."


	6. Good Intentions

**A/N: **My free time has been quite limited lately, so I'd say updates will probably be about once a week. The wonderful responses and reviews certainly help to fan the fire of my inspiration for this story, so again, as always, thank you guys!

_Frostbite Symptoms _

_Chapter Six;_

_Good Intentions_

Margot was fitting a clean set of silk sheets onto to the princess' bed when the door opened and closed abruptly. Elsa swept into the room, her short heels clicking irritably against the floor. She pulled the pins from her hair that held it in a braid which wove into a tight bun, and threaded her slender fingers through it, untwisting the intricately knitted braids and tossed the hairpins onto her vanity. Her tapered eyebrows were pulled into an agitated frown and her blue eyes were a blizzard of angry intensity. She stood at her vanity with both palms on the surface, glaring at her reflection.

"The meeting didn't take a pleasant route, then," Margot prompted, resuming her task of dressing Elsa's bed.

Elsa, while unaware that Margot had been present in the room with her, answered her maid without hesitating.

"There was no meeting."

Margot looked up, smoothing the creases in the sheets. "Oh?"

Elsa turned so that she could lean back against the vanity and crossed her arms. "No."

Margot bent down to retrieve one of Elsa's plush, tassled quilts and began unfolding it. She made no further attempt to coax any more conversation from Elsa and the princess scoffed, turning her head sharply to glare out of the window across the room where sunlight filtered in through her blue curtains. Elsa punctured the brief silence after a moment, taking Margot's reserve as a reason to expand upon her short reply.

"It was twenty minutes of my father berating me for spending any amount of time with another human being from outside of these castle walls," she continued in a low hiss. Anger was such a rarely sparked flame for her and it burned uncharacteristically in Elsa's eyes, it fit too tightly over her skin. "He tells me it's for my sake that he hides me away unless a special occasion arises, but has no concern for me or my well-being. He's worried for his reputation and the judgment this kingdom will pass on him if they know what I am." Her gloved fingers dug into the insides of her elbows and her eyes closed. She inhaled deeply through her nose and her shoulders rose and fell with the movement. Margot could see the flame flicker, then douse before her eyes. Then, much quieter, she said, "He's so ashamed of me."

The wrinkles on Margot's face carved deeper into a distressed frown and she laid the quilt down at the foot of the bed, only halfway unfolded, and sighed, crossing the room to her princess. She curved her rough, weathered hand around the apple of Elsa's cheek and the princess leaned into Margot's touch, a tear tracing the curve of her face and disappearing into the palm of Margot's hand.

"Oh, Elsa, your father loves you so much," she whispered and Elsa drew in a sharp breath that coaxed more tears from her closed eyes. She shrunk inward on herself and small, tormented sounds squeezed from her lungs. Her own hand raised to cap her mouth, to quiet the weak noises her throat couldn't extinguish. Margot felt the ache of it resonate in her chest and her heart throbbed painfully. "He loves you so very much. It pains me to see the two of you at it like this. You've been through enough pain, the both of you. It's excessive to inflict more on yourselves and one another."

"He doesn't say it," Elsa murmured, the usual smoothness of her voice rough and patchy. "He doesn't give any indication that he thinks anything more of me than this unyielding lump of rock that he simply cannot carve into a queen."

Margot passed her thumb over the smooth skin of Elsa's cheek to clear the tracks of tears there. Elsa wanted to love her father without having to hate herself and she had never known one without the other.

"He lost his love, darling," Margot said gently. "Your mother's death is a heavy, heavy weight on him and he couldn't bear to ever lose you, too. Fear may drive him in the wrong direction at times, but he does it to protect you. I'm not condoning his choices," she amended softly. Margot always considered it cruel that Elsa had no companion, no long-term friends of her own growing up. The queen had thought it equally inhumane and she acted against her husband's wishes in secret at times. "But know he keeps you in mind with every one of those choices he makes and he makes them with the best intentions."

Elsa released an unsteady breath and her crystal eyes opened. The light caught the sharply cut varying tones of blue and they flickered back at Margot like the many faces of a diamond.

"She's good for me," Elsa whispered. "He doesn't see that."

Margot's solemn expression brightened at that and she smiled. "She's every bit of the girl I remember and more. A feisty thing, isn't she?"

Elsa laughed once and a brief smile crossed her face.

Margot had watched the king and queen fall in love with their daughter when she was no more than a swell of Her Majesty's stomach, and she had swiftly fallen along with them. She witnessed them become more and more smitten with her when she had been born, when she had first walked, first spoken. At the initial sign of Elsa's abilities, they had retaliated with a fierce protectiveness. Neither of them had fallen the least bit out of love with her, but they were afraid. Afraid of what the public would do, how they would receive her, if she would be threatened or potentially in danger. They would keep it a secret until it was wielded skillfully; only certain members of the staff were to be aware of Elsa's truth, and Margot was one of the first to know. There was little concern at first - Elsa's powers were weak and appeared rarely when she was young. She was restricted, but it was nothing compared to the prison that awaited her once she was on the brim of adolescence.

She had met the blacksmith's daughter when she was eight. A little red-headed girl who breathed a life into Elsa that she hadn't known she'd been choking without. Colors were more vivid and she had a newfound reason for rising from bed each morning. She'd always been eager to learn from her instructors, but she'd become eager to learn of a different craft from Anna. To learn a form of companionship she hadn't personally known yet.

Hardegin had come to Arendelle in search of work and requested the royal audience of the king and queen to ask for the opportunity to aid the supply of Arendelle's metal work. Clearly, trade partnerships would still carry much of the burden, but he could supply as much as possible locally. He'd expected a less than brief meeting with them and realistically, he expected a rejection. Pleasantly, he had been met with a dinner invitation from the king, which he quickly and politely declined. He'd recently lost his wife and had a five year-old daughter, he'd explained, who was too rambunctious to confine to a posh dinner table for a professional meeting and he knew not a soul in the kingdom yet, so he had no one to take her off his hands for an evening. The queen had encouraged him to bring Anna along; they had a daughter a few years older that could keep her preoccupied if needed. Hardegin had hesitantly complied at their kind insistence and his daughter eagerly anticipated the dinner, like it was the most exciting gift in the world for her to be in the presence of a real life princess.

Wide eyed and eager for even an ounce of friendship, little Anna had dropped into Elsa's life like a paint bomb, the colors splashing all around her and drowning the dull palette that had been her past.

Despite the age gap - three years wasn't much, but the current period of their lives made the divide an awkward one at first - they clicked instantly. They fit together as if they had been molded to do so. Elsa was enchanted. She shared her powers with Anna like a secret, something she was forbidden to do, but she was bursting to tell _someone _and there was no better audience than an enthusiastic little Anna.

On top of selling to fellow villagers and travelers alike from his home, Hardegin was deemed Arendelle's official blacksmith and metal worker (the king and queen likely would have deemed him so solely based on his infectious and kind personality, but he was also highly skilled in his craft) and he made consistent personal deliveries to the castle. Anna always tagged along to see her pretty princess friend and the king and queen formed a decently solid friendship with the blacksmith as well. Elsa secretly wondered if her father ordered more than necessary simply as a reason to have Hardegin and his daughter at the castle. Regardless, she was grateful and cherished her friend.

The euphoria didn't last. That vivid color was stolen from her by her own hands and the world went black and white again. It was nearly unbearable, to have such promise torn from her, to return to the familiar muffled tones of grey she had known before. Blonde streaked like a scar through Anna's red hair and leeched the color from it in a swift stroke from the roots to the tips. Elsa quickly learned to hate the platinum color of her own hair and the frosted tips of her fingers.

Anna had been swept out of her arms into the burly ones of the blacksmith and Elsa's hands went cold in a way that she'd never felt. She wept on her knees, feeling small in the enormous ballroom that choked her as though she were trapped in a coffin.

The incident left her without a friend and it buried a seed of hatred at the base of her own little heart. That seed grew and branched around the muscle in her chest, nourished by her own thoughts of self-loathing and the lines her parents fed her.

Elsa's mother shielded her daughter at close proximity while her father's approach was more distant. She kept Elsa safe from the loneliness, while he kept the kingdom safe from his daughter.

"He doesn't want either of you hurt, Elsa," Margot continued, sobering. She had always been fond of Anna, even now, when she was all but a stranger. "And he has reason to be apprehensive."

Elsa took offense to that and turned her face from Margot's hand.

"I have grieved that more than he knows how to. And the only way for me to quell this guilt is for me to -"

"Oh!" Margot exclaimed and Elsa jolted. "So this is about clearing your conscience? I think that's unfair, Elsa."

Elsa blushed and cast her eyes downward, a shadow falling over her face. "N-no, I -"

"I'm kidding, child," Margot waved a hand. "Such serious thing, you are. Now, your father is the king of Arendelle, and really, he's the voice of reason here. But being your maid, my allegiance swings your way under these circumstances," Margot said, a twinkle in her eye. Elsa looked up, a confused frown on her face as if she didn't understand. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him," Margot clarified and punctuated her point with a wink.

"Margot," Elsa said, both scandalized and impish. A sly grin took the place of her frown.

"You deserve a friend, dear," Margot said seriously, taking Elsa's gloved hands in her own. Her thumbs pressed into Elsa's palms and rubbed slow circles there. Elsa seemed to be deeply affected by it. "You weren't brought into this world to be alone. And she's a good girl, Hardegin has seen to that."

"She's dazzling, isn't she?" Elsa spouted excitedly, gripping Margot's hands in return. "Infectious," she added, recalling how contagious Anna's laughter was.

"She's wonderful," Margot agreed warmly, relishing in Elsa's outward reaction to Anna. "Now, when are you to see her again?"

- - x - -

"Tomorrow night!" Anna squealed, fingers balled up into fists. "We have a secret, romantic rendezvous in the forest."

The sun hung low in the sky behind her, dusk perhaps an hour away. Anna would be glad for the darkness; hopefully it would lift this hazy heat.

"In the forest? _At night_? Anna, you're not going out there by yourself after dark, it's dangerous!" Kristoff reasoned, and truthfully, he was still attempting to catch up with the happenings of Anna's afternoon.

"Pft," Anna dismissed him, kicking a pebble as she walked. "The scariest thing around here is your Sven voice. Besides, I'm not going to be by myself. I'm going to be with Elsa."

Kristoff blanched, offended, but recovered quickly, pulling down Sven's jaw to match the sound of his emphasized voice like a puppet as he responded with a protesting, "hey!"

Anna gave him a pointed look, one that Sven mirrored a second after, unimpressed.

"Whatever, we're not talking about me right now," Kristoff said, releasing Sven's chin. "If you're really going out into the woods after sundown, I'm coming with you."

"No way! You're not ruining me and Elsa's date with your paranoia -"

"_Date__?" _

_"_And I can take care of myself, thank you very much," Anna finished, indignant.

Kristoff shook his head in an attempt to clear his head and move past the nonsense Anna had just spoken. "How do you know this isn't a trap or something? What if she's luring you into some kind of ritual and she's planning to sacrifice you to the wolves, or whatever?"

"Again, you _are not ruining my date with your paranoia. _And that's the princess of Arendelle you're bad-mouthing, mister," Anna wagged an accusing finger at him.

Kristoff scoffed. "Okay, fine. At least let me walk you there? So that I don't have to worry?"

Sven, bored of their argument, galloped ahead to the stables which were strangely absent of their caretaker considering the sun had yet to set, and buried his nose into a sack of carrots that hung off the edge of a bent nail pounded into one of the posts. Kristoff scrambled after him ungracefully and yanked the reindeer's face from the bag before he plucked a carrot from his mouth. It broke in half between Sven's teeth and Kristoff bit into his half.

Anna scrutinized him for a moment and debated his request, undisturbed by the display before her. Then, skeptically, "You promise you're gonna leave as soon as we get there?"

Kristoff sighed, crossing his arms. "Promise," he grumbled in agreement as he swallowed the last bit of carrot.

"'Kay, fine, worry-wart," Anna shrugged. "As long as you're out of sight the moment I meet up with her."

"What're you guys gonna do, anyway?" Kristoff asked as he grabbed a horse brush that had hung below the carrot sack, then began pulling the brush through Sven's coarse fur. Sven made a strange noise of pleasure at the sensation.

"I truly think I'm in love with her," Anna ignored his question and sighed dreamily, slumping against the stable post. An arm lay over her head and the other was a loosely clasped fist over her heart. She yearned, then and there, to break it from the cage between her lungs solely to calm the incessant fluttering that had not given her a break since that morning. Her heart was a restless bird in her chest and it tugged her toward the castle.

Kristoff, who was still tangled in a net of confusion - _who was the old lady?, Leo-who?, Elsa, glasses, socks, volcano king? Anna, slow down_ - paused in the middle of brushing Sven's fur and his jaw swung low, unbolted. He frowned, the diagonal gesture of his eyebrows both disbelieving and incredulous, and Sven gave a protesting snort at the interruption.

"Whoa, whoa, you guys have spent one _day_ together, Anna," Kristoff shifted the muscles of his jaw and managed to hinge it once more so he could speak. He resumed his strokes to placate Sven's petulant stomping. "You don't know anything about her."

Anna gave him a low-lidded, ludicrous look.

"You know what I mean," Kristoff rolled his eyes. Yes, Anna had been studying every curtsy, every dress, every shadow of a smile, every flutter of Princess Elsa's eyelashes since he could remember.

"I know enough," Anna said indignantly.

"You don't know enough to know you're in _love_ with her."

"Kristoff, if it's true love, that's _all _you need to know."

"True lo-" Kristoff sputtered. This time, the brush clattered to the cobblestone ground and Sven made a noise of displeasure that landed in the crossfire between a 'moo' and a snort. Kristoff ignored him and bent down to retrieve it. "Anna, you can't truly love someone you've talked to _twice_."

Anna huffed and crossed her arms, taut.

"What's your problem? I've talked about Elsa loads, you've never acted like this was an issue before. On the contrary, if I'm not mistaken, you're Mr. Princess-Elsa-Is-In-Love-With-The-Blacksmith's-Daughter."

"I dunno, I mean, maybe because this is the first time the word _'love'_ has been used on your end," Kristoff replied, exasperated. He held a hand against Sven's snout at arm's length to keep his testy companion from headbutting him at the second disruption. Anna blinked, unperturbed."I kinda treated it as a joke, honestly. Like, you've talked about her and I knew you had a _thing_ for her, but I'm just saying you have some unrealistic ideals and expectations. She's royalty, Anna. She has to get married and birth an heir and rule Arendelle and all that stuff."

"Ugh, please never use the phrase 'birth an heir' ever again," Anna groaned. Then, she unfolded one arm and aimed her pointer finger at a lanky teenage boy wearing a simple, yet worn tunic and trousers a short distance away who had a confused frown on his face. His frowned deepened as his gaze shifted from Anna to Kristoff and he broke out into a run. "Also, I think the stable boy is coming back."

Kristoff's eyes bugged and he hastily hung the brush back up on the stable wall, picking a single carrot from the bag that hung below it. He bit it in half, tossing Sven the other piece as he ran from the scene of his crimes. When Anna caught up with him, he shrugged and spoke around the carrot in his mouth and over the shouts of the stable boy in the distance.

"It's her duty. And it's not like you can give her that." He caught the hurt look in Anna's eyes and the stubborn swell of a pout on her bottom lip. "Wait - I didn't mean it like _that_, if you guys got serious I'm sure there's a lot of things you could give her, but she - wait what? Never mind. I'm done talking about this," his arms hung low at his sides like a gorilla and his back was arched forward to match. He made it a few more paces before he lifted his arms again, throwing them into the air. "Anna, you're _fifteen_!" he shouted, dragging his hands down his face and pulling on the subtle bags beneath his eyes. When he was met with a blank stare from Anna and a single, mindless blink, he recovered and straightened his slouched spine._ "_No, I'm done. This is way too weird and totally ridiculous. Plus, I'm just going to continue shoving my foot into my mouth and I don't feel like fighting with you. I'm tired."

Anna waved a hand dismissively, entirely unstirred, "Whatever to all that stuff. Obviously I'm not gonna be fifteen forever and I really feel like we have this crazy deep connection. I know I've spoken to her a total of two times at this point, but there's something there, Kristoff," she held her face in her own hands, subtly squishing her cheeks together. "Maybe we're soulmates." Kristoff would have sworn entire constellations twinkled inside the galaxies of Anna's large, innocent eyes.

"Maybe you're nuts," Kristoff murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

"I'm going to kiss her one day," Anna said quietly, her eyes far way. She stopped walking to properly visualize the moment. "I'm totally going to kiss her. And then one day I'm going to marry her and I'll let her do the decorating because she has amazing fashion taste and I'll pick the cake. And we'll write up the guest list together because she's got to invite all of her royals and nobles and I'll invite our friends -"

Anna looked up to see Kristoff had gone, then turned to Sven who gave her the best impression of a shrug a reindeer could offer.

"You believe me, don't you, Sven?" Anna bent down with her lips pursed, speaking to Sven like she would to an infant as she scratched behind his ear. Exactly the way Kristoff hated for her to speak to him. "I'll even let you be ring bearer."

Sven grunted enthusiastically and leaned into Anna's touch.

"I'm glad _you _have my back," her mouth spread into a smile and she kissed his nose.


End file.
